Julia Strong – Biography

Julia Strong, former English teacher and secondary school deputy headteacher in inner London, became deputy director of the National Literacy Trust in 1997 and, as part of that role, developed an understanding of literacy across the curriculum.

In 2004, she became director of the National Reading Campaign and helped develop Reading Connects, an umbrella organisation which brought together all the key national organisations interested in helping schools use reading for pleasure to enhance achievement. Through its website, Reading Connects offered a support network to get the whole school reading alongside a range of tailor-made Reading Champions schemes to engage men and boys in building reading communities. She also led the development of Early Reading Connects to support a love of stories in early years settings alongside Family Reading Matters – to develop and implement a local authority strategy to support literacy in the home.

Julia has been working with Pie Corbett developing Talk for Writing since 2005, initially through conferences with the National Literacy Trust and then through supporting the development of the approach for fiction with the Primary National Strategy. Pie and Julia later worked with schools in Sheffield and Lewisham to develop the approach for non-fiction, and then with reception teachers in Sheffield to establish how best to involve families in the approach.

Julia specialises in literacy across the curriculum and has provided training days for hundreds of secondary schools, and some all-age schools, as well as being asked by local authorities to run training for headteachers, school librarians and literacy advisers. She has written a range of practical books on literacy across the curriculum as well as secondary school English text books including English Frameworking, Literacy at 11- 14, and Literacy Across the Curriculum that proved to be best sellers. She has co-authored Talk for Writing across the primary curriculum (5-12) with Pie Corbett, which is also a best seller. Her book Talk for Writing in Secondary Schools was published in autumn 2013.

She is currently Deputy Director of Pie Corbett’s recently established Talk4Writing.com and is writing Jumpstart Grammar and Talk for Writing in Early Years with Pie.